I Had to Let Them Go
by DenizenofTwilight
Summary: Kairi had just come back to the Islands after Sora restored the worlds. However, her journey didn't end there. Depression and slowly dying from her Princess of Heart status aside, the Organization comes to kidnap Kairi in order to get to Sora. And could it be Kairi's being chained by her own memories? Just how do you save someone who doesn't want to be saved? Read this to find out!


**Color It Ironic**

Kairi didn't know exactly how many days it had been since she'd last seen Sora, via a cloud of smoke, as her world reformed to how it had been before, before...

Well, to tell the truth, Kairi tried not to think about what it had been like within Sora's heart. Not because it had been a bad experience for her. To the contrary, Kairi had known that when her personal world was falling apart there was only one place she'd even want to go: to Sora's caring heart. All things considered, that had not been the worst part of Kairi's journey. Of course, calling it her journey was a little selfish. Though Kairi knew full well that the journey was Sora's, it helped her to deal with- to deal with... Oh, there was no use in holding back her tears was there?

Crumpling to the ground beneath her, it was all Kairi could do to get to the sliding door to her home, and fling herself in before she knocked it down. She didn't get far.

Right on the edge of the steps that led up to her room, Kairi found she had banged her leg pretty hard on the landing. She could see clearly where her stocking had caught on a nail, which caused it to rip up towards her ankle. Taking just a moment to feel happiness in that she wouldn't get tetanus, Kairi had to smile at the fact she seemed to be having a growth spurt. As such, her socks weren't fitting her at all. Instead, they wanted to bunch down and almost fall off her feet altogether. While otherwise annoying, it had been the excess fabric at the bottom of her foot that had kept the nail from running through her. And Sora and Riku thought they knew how to live on the wild side! Just wait until they heard about-

It took Kairi a moment to realize the choked sound—that seemed to be in surround sound all around her ears—was coming from her. The moment she realized that she sounded like an animal dying (and just what a thing would do to her adopted parents), Kairi tried to take a hold of her throat in a vain attempt to smother the sounds she was making.

It was an odd thing: Somehow, she'd known all along that it was a separate part of her mind yelling (perhaps a more accurate term was her heart), and that even if she willed herself to stop making a fuss, she wouldn't have been able to stop it. Yes, this was the only way she could stop shouting, and protect her parents from seeing her grief.

Cutting off her own air supply, Kairi prepared to welcome unconsciousness. She knew, without a doubt, that when she passed out she'd be able to breathe again. So yes, she longed for when her hand would fall slack away from her neck. More than that? She welcomed relief from thinking about what she'd been afraid of all along. That Sora and Riku were gone, and as much as she hoped for it, she might never see them again. She was as useless as when she'd been locked inside Sora, seeing Ansem about to stab him unaware. Only this time... Her screams wouldn't do anyone any good. And so, she welcomed darkness.

Unknown to her, Sora was traversing a long, winding road seeking many things, but mostly, her Light.

...

It was a little while later that Kairi woke up to find her undamaged foot held up when it needn't need to be. Or, she didn't think so, at least. As sleep still clawed at her mind, Kairi found herself somewhat disoriented. She couldn't easily recall why she was in bed in such darkness. Somehow, it didn't seem like night to her. So did that mean she was supposed to get up and go to school? Or maybe she'd gotten hurt at school, and so-

"Oh, Kairi! You're awake!"

Taking her hand down on a journey from her hair to her chin, Kairi suddenly realized why the hairs on the back of her neck had been standing up. Someone was in the room with her. And though Sora's mid-puberty voice _was_ very adorable and high pitched, she didn't think that was whom she was hearing at all. Peeking one eye open, Kairi knew for a fact that that chestnut and flipped hairstyle could only belong to one person. Selphie.

As bad as it made the former Radiant Garden resident feel, Kairi wasn't at all sure she was up to entertaining Selphie. Far from being exhausted (and Kairi's aching bones seemed to attest that she was that, too), she just felt empty. Like all the life and fun had been sucked from her at an early age. As Kairi's slightly dirtied and lackluster hair fell in front of her eyes, she sighed; she almost felt as though she'd been diagnosed with some terminal illness that only she could ever know about. After all, she was beginning to remember why she felt so upset. And if anything ever happened to Sora or Riku, Kairi was certain her heart would give ou-

"Here, eat some soup. I was so worried when your parents called and told me you were sad. So worried, indeed!"

"Yes, well, as long as that's onion soup, tell them I'll feel better in no ti-"

Tilting her head to the side curiously, Kairi had the strangest feeling that the being in front of her wasn't Selphie in the slightest. As the hairs on her arms now standing up to join those on her neck, Kairi couldn't help but feel the specks of black reflected on Selphie from the blinds, had to mean something

Biting onto her tongue so she purposefully came in contact with her canker sore (so the shot of pain she felt through her would told her she wasn't, in fact, dreaming), Kairi suddenly felt a surprising, but welcomed, sense of adrenaline lace up her veins. As the Princess of Heart suddenly came upon the realization she might soon have to fight for her life the way Sora and Riku must have, she found herself scanning her room desperately from some sort of weapon she could use to defend herself with.

To the far right corner of her room where a nook was situated, Kairi had many textbooks that could have been of use. The main problem was getting to them. Closer to where she was at the moment, Kairi knew her best bet (besides calling for her parents and letting them get their hearts stolen, too) was to reach behind the head of her bed and pull out the surfboard that was there. Realistically, this odd, humanized Heartless would probably steal her heart before she got to it. There was, though, one better thing she could use if it came down to it, but it would be all the more risky. The spoon in the soup "Selphie" had brought to her was reminding Kairi more and more of Sora's Keyblade. Maybe if she could just grab that, she could transform it into Sora's Keyblade? After all, her stay in Sora's heart must have done _something_ to strengthen her connection to him. If she could just borrow his Blade as long as Riku had-

"You're too smart, Kairi. What gave it away?" As Kairi resisted the urge to gasp and dive under her plump, lavender bed, she was somewhat horrified to realize the person who wasn't Selphie at all was starting to look very much like her! As the term "looking glass" flitted through Kairi's mind, as she recalled her—Sora's—time in Wonderland, she was beginning to wonder if maybe she'd somehow gotten there. Or maybe her dreams were connected to it like her fellow Princess of Heart's?

As red hair started to traverse "Selphie's" head in an even more untamed way than Sora's, Kairi thought that the grin that was appearing on the face of this girl—no, it was a man, wasn't it?! —did, in fact, look like the Cheshire Cat. As Kairi deftly pulled the spoon away from the changing figure's form, she was truly starting to believe this person was a humanoid version of the Cheshire Cat who had come to play (in which case, a good bonk to its head with her spoon would convince it not to scare people), but as she suddenly saw jade eyes looking at her intently, she easily recalled the last time she'd seen such a malevolent gaze. Sadly, the look had belonged to Riku. This man was neither the Cheshire Cat nor the possessed Riku, but he was surely just as dangerous as the latter.

With the depressing realization that her spoon had not turned to Kingdom Key in her hands, Kairi was forced to account that her situation was becoming more and more grave. If she couldn't escape from this man, she was going to have to resort to something she'd never wanted to do before: being truly, almost evilly, violent.

As Kairi choked back sobs (that were, surprisingly, not for her own fate), she dreaded the thought of just how forcefully and deeply she'd have to dig this metal into the man's body to wound him enough to escape. As vain and stupid as the thought was, Kairi could only hope that the blood that would possibly stain her hands wouldn't be the color of her hair.

Maybe... maybe she was just jumping to conclusions? For all she knew, this person could be friendly. This person could be- Swallowing back the vomit that wanted to come out at her own, obvious mental lies (oh the joys of being a Princess of Heart!), Kairi knew she was kidding herself with her chivalrous and hopeful thoughts.

But even as her instincts screamed at her to at least throw the spoon at the man's face and run far, far away, she instead chose the polite way. She knew instantly that it was a mistake, when the man kept changing altogether, and his body, though not that of a Heartless... Was stained with just as much Darkness. He was wearing a cloak.

Remembering their conversation from before she'd nearly been having a heart attack, Kairi smiled pleasantly (falsely) at the suspected villain in front of her, and gave him his answer. "Selphie would... She's much more excited sounding than that. She also sounds more like a valley girl." What Kairi left off from that statement was that Selphie, the over achiever, would have brought her much more than soup. Instead, she would have started with Kairi's dream comfort food from Riku (it was a long story) peanut brittle, as just a start!

Though it was true Kairi didn't say this to give her could-be-killer-or-heart-stealer too much information about her, the truth was there was still a chance Selphie—in undoubtedly hearing her friend was sick through various gossip channels—_would_ come over to help her. Though Kairi didn't fancy Selphie around a possible (weird) Heartless anymore than she did her parents, she had learned how skilled Selphie could be with her jump rope. Of course, she'd be even more lethal with the nunchakus she was starting to take everywhere (in fear of Darkness taking the islands again).

To try and relax her face, and hide that she might have an ace up her sleeve. Kairi looked at the smirking (why was he smirking?!) man in front of her as curious and innocently as she could manage. "So are you a Heartless, or- Huh!"

The man's attempt to nab Kairi happened about as soon as she'd thought it would. With a flash of his pearly whites in what Kairi dubbed his "slasher smile", the man's face seemed to become illuminated in such a way Kairi had never known before; it took her just another moment to realize the light she was now truly seeing was not coming from the redhead's smile. No, the blinding Light that seemed to highlight tattoos on the adult's face was coming from something else entirely.

As Kairi felt her hair begin to blow in some sort of faux wind, she was instantly able to recall how what she'd done in Hollow Bastion to bring Sora back... Had had much of the same effect as what she was doing now. Though Kairi knew there was more than enough chance this man had already deduced she was a Princess of Heart (in fact, that was probably why he'd come after her in the first place), Kairi couldn't help but hate herself for so easily showing off her powers. Even if it was being done unconsciously as a means to protect herself, she didn't exactly want the stranger to know just how he'd struck gold.

Blinking once, twice, three times, the girl recalled every seminar she'd ever attended on what to do in such situations. Though the Islands had been sadly closed-lipped on just what to do in the presence of Heartless, asking for help aside, Kairi knew her best bet was to:

Dive under her bed and hold onto it with all her might. As Kairi was very tiny, and the space between her red wooden floor and bed was scarce at best, the Princess knew that the man wouldn't be able to crawl under her bed to get her. While Kairi wasn't certain this was entirely the best choice of actions (_the_ best choice was, sadly, a no-go, since Kairi wouldn't endanger people if she could help it), her bed did seem to be the only thing she could use to her advantage to guard herself from the one who meant to take her heart. There was no way in hell that she could escape via her high up balcony.

"Oh, criminy!" Kairi sputtered, as her mental curse seemed to send hot acid boiling up her throat. Though she'd always had a hard time lying, after learning her Princess of Heart status, even the smallest bad thing she did began to have a toll on her. Still unused to the development, the red haired girl hadn't been prepared in the slightest for her thought—and the sudden pain it caused her—to ruin her attempt to dash under her bed. Bonking her head on a drawer situated at the bottom of her bed, Kairi saw stars for a moment; disoriented as she was, she was unable to scoot herself under her bed completely. So, with a heavy heart, Kairi acknowledged exactly what her fate was going to be.

Self-fulfilling prophecy or not, Kairi found her worst fears were proven right when she was pulled up from her hiding place via her strands of hair that weren't hidden. Crying at the locks of cranberry that were being pulled from her head, Kairi felt herself about to blanch again for all the ordeals she'd been forced to go through lately.

The worst of all of it to her: It could only be the fact that she was, once again, useless. She couldn't even win a fight against someone mentally! She should have _known _the being she had encountered was only the person's shadow. As great as she'd thought she'd been doing, one wouldn't easily lose face to a weak, unprepared little girl. Hadn't she seen Ansem use his Guardian enough to-

"Listen, girly. It isn't going to be as bad as you're imagining it to be. Just mess with Sora and you'll be fine, got it memorized? The name's Axel, by the way."

Confused, disoriented, and all around angry (in fact, Kairi was preparing to do some unseemly things to this man _despite_ what it did to her), Kairi was only able to blink stupidly at Axel before getting her wits about her and kicking his offered hand so hard she heard the bone crack.

Blowing a piece of hair out of her face, Kairi was more than glad she'd finally been able to get some sort of violent desire out of her system without it hurting _her_. After all, she hadn't meant for his hand to go that far back; she'd just been trying to distract him so she could steal away into the night. It was much like how she'd mock-hurt Sora to steal a bite of his pi-

Suddenly realizing perhaps the real reason her Princess of Heart status hadn't come back to bite her in the butt, Kairi understood with a certain clarity that her choice to shun Axel's help—and get thoroughly distracted—was going to hurt _her_ in the long run. She hadn't hurt Axel at all, had she? She'd hurt herself!

Peering at Axel through squinted and searching eyes, Kairi tried to adopt her "psychic peripheral" as Riku called it. Though the Princess of Heart really doubted that she could be psychic, she was able to guess things sometimes. And right now... Though Axel's face didn't betray his helpful façade in the slightest, by the tightening of his brows, Kairi could pick up that she'd wounded his ego; even if she asked, he wouldn't tell her what these new nightmares had in store for Sora. He would just watch her suffer in silence, all the while pretending to be a friend.

Kairi could do better than that. She should have gone to look for Sora and warn him of the little she knew. There really was no reason she should have been discussing things with Axel at all. And yet, the words came out of her mouth, anyway. Perhaps it was a gift to be hopeful for being a Princess of Heart, but Kairi couldn't escape feeling it was her personal curse. "What do you have in store for Sora?" Kairi asked, as she allowed Axel to pull her out from beneath the bed. Sitting Indian style on her floor, Kairi tried to blink in a very doe like fashion. Maybe if Axel thought Kairi was just an innocent child... Maybe the sympathetic side he possessed (because everyone possessed one, or so Kairi wanted to believe) would allow him to help her not. Or... not.

As the redheaded Princess saw glee twinkle in the other redhead's eyes, she found herself preparing to scoot closer to Axel. If he tried to grab her again, she was all prepared to try a new tactic she'd heard about to escape. Instead of trying to pull away from him, she'd lean into him and use his own body and weight against-

"You're going to make him a slave of the Organization by messing with his memories and making him loyal to us. If you don't, we'll kill the kid. Believe me, dear princess, when I say we can do such a thing easily."

Even though Kairi didn't look to know for sure—and it very well might have been a figment of her imagination—as Axel oddly seemed to read her mind, but crept closer to her... Kairi thought she could feel his evil smile as he laid his cheek against her own. For one bizarre moment, a surge of emotions and memories seemed to overwhelm Kairi, as she noted her hair was nearly the same as Axel's. Though she really couldn't say for sure if she'd had family in Hollow Bastion or not, she did have to wonder if maybe somewhere out there she had a brother that looked like her. Was it possible that brother was Axel?

Shaking her head to rid it of the ridiculous thought, Kairi tried hard to focus on the matter at hand and come up with a way to get out of her predicament. As what Axel had said spun around and around in her head, Kairi couldn't help but wonder if it was all true. Though it wasn't hard to believe someone would want the Keyblade, could this so called Organization really believe she was the way to access it? Though Kairi knew for sure Sora would have sacrificed his life to return the heart of any of his loved ones, the girl couldn't help but gulp and wonder if _that _was why they wanted to use her. But how could they have possibly known of such an event? She hadn't told anyone, and Sora, Donald and Goofy (the anthropomorphic beings that Kairi had only had a brief encounter with, but trusted completely) wouldn't have told anyone. That only left-

"No!" Kairi snarled much crueler and fiercer than she ever had before. For one horrible moment, she thought her body was going to once again attack her for the meanness it shouldn't have been allowed to exert. Though such a thing didn't come, Kairi had no desire to rejoice in the slightest. No, she was being torn apart in another way right at the very moment. Riku. It had to have been through Riku that this man had known of her connection to Sora. Or more accurately, the man who had possessed him, Ansem.

As tears formed in Kairi's vision and everything became hazy around her, she had to wonder fearfully if Ansem had finally taken full control of Riku. Would she ever see her friend again? Would Sora be enough to bring him back? Oh, god. Why hadn't she gone with Sora to find Riku?! If she had, maybe none of this would have been happening now!

"You know, you're making this surprisingly easy for me to kidnap you." And though after Axel's words registered in Kairi's mind she tried her hardest to get away from him (via elbowing him, biting him, and trying to get the nail out of her sock to jab it in Axel's skin), it seemed as though it was no use. Maybe there never had been.

As Kairi's body was raked with sobs in fear of what had become of Riku, she knew there was no way she could calm herself enough to put up a decent fight. Her loved ones' well-being would always be put before her own. And it was only the worry of what she might put Sora through if she was taken (never mind the fact that the so called Organization wanted to use her against him) that allowed her to continue to fight in Axel's arms.

"You're a fiery one, Princess. I respect that, as I am, too. But I brought a way to put out your flame." Before Kairi could ask just what her assailant was talking about, she suddenly saw Axel's arm shooting forward to create some strange portal of Darkness. Recoiling instantly, Kairi tried to get away from the instrument of evil as much as she could, but not being able to wriggle out of Axel's arms, it all became impossible for her in the end.

Inhaling so much Darkness that she thought it would kill her (and this time Sora wouldn't even be around to house the ill Kairi's heart for safekeeping), Kairi was almost glad that Axel was merciful and tapped her pressure point so she couldn't endure it all conscious. Almost.

As Kairi was pulled into some dream that was a cross between a dream and nightmare, she found herself lost in a memory. Ironic when thinking of what Axel had just said to her: It was a memory of Sora.

_Kairi could only stare at Sora in shock the moment he wrapped his arms around her torso and buried his face in her hair._ _Shooting a look at Riku, Kairi was surprised to see he looked just as bemused as she imagined Sora did at the moment. It was odd to her; as Sora stood there trying his best to warm Kairi up (she was so very cold in this extremely rare blizzard the island was having), she couldn't help but feel like something was very wrong. _

_For one, she should have been more than ecstatic that Sora was willing to share his body heat with her! Though there was no sign of a mirror close by, Kairi was more than certain her lips were beginning to turn purple. She wondered, then, why Riku wasn't coming towards her to try and help save her, too. As Kairi's arms continued to hang limply at her sides, she more than ached to stretch them out and beckon Riku to come share in her would-be-hug with Sora. _

_However, as the image in Kairi's mind began rippling and blurring like the way water would if someone skipped rocks in it, Kairi was becoming more and more aware that the event she was in was just a memory. Nothing more. Nothing less. So why, then, did she feel odd when it seemed as though someone was putting a cloak on her and zipping it up? Looking down at her feet (though she was terribly sad to pull her vision away from Sora to do so), Kairi half-expected there to be some sort of leather coat brushing against her and Sora's ankles. There was nothing there. Of course there wasn't. If she was wearing something other than the frilly little dress she'd recently bought- If they hadn't been caught in the blizzard- The blizzard!_

_Gasping in shock, with a sudden awareness, Kairi was beginning to know just what exactly was happening. Though the last bit of "snow" she'd seen hadn't been a blizzard per se (rather it had been the worlds returning to their place among the stars), it was somehow this blizzard that seemed the most artificial and out of place. _

_In the back of her mind, Kairi knew that if she was going to have to be in either of the storms... It made much more sense for her to be in the place she'd last said goodbye to Sora. The place where she'd first realized her Princess of Heart status might end to her demise. The place that had put her through so much heartbreak that she'd nearly been catatonic when Axel-_

"Huh!" Darting upward from where she was sitting in what looked like a sea of snow, Kairi felt white plaster brush against her searching fingers. She was on some sort of floor, then? Though even without looking up, Kairi knew she'd be surrounded by beings in black cloaks… She didn't check to make sure. Maybe she just had no desire to see just how much she'd screwed up again.

Why hadn't she put up more of a fight when Axel had come to kidnap her? Why?! She should have known that her sudden worries about Riku had been a lie. As the man, Saïx, had just said (that she'd subconsciously heard in her dream), these beings knew very well how to injure a heart, and they'd played hers like a piano, hadn't they?

Fishing in her sock for the nail again Kairi planned to use any means necessary to escape. Looking around her confines hastily, she also realized she might be able to use that flower like thing to hit someone with, if-

"Good. Axel, I see you're not a total failure. You were able to help Kairi make the mental connection to her powers. This is all very good. Soon, Sora will be here. And when he is, we'll make good use of her."

Discreetly putting a hand to her ear to hear everything better, Kairi knew that these trade secrets they were spilling in front of her (clearly they thought she was too traumatized to truly listen) were things she needed to know and put to her benefit.

Though her head was reeling from the altered memory she'd just witnessed, she knew that now was not the time to dwell on it. Even if she was worried about what had happened to the girl in her altered memory, Naminé (who in this version of her memory, had been who they'd gone searching for in the blizzard…but that wasn't right in reality)…now was not the time to think on it. Right now she was forced to realize that flawed plan or not, the Organization was right. Kairi _did_ have power over memories. How else could she have changed her own even without meaning to? This did not bode well. This did not bode well at all; soon Sora would be here, and-

"Hey, don't look like that! Everything's going to be fine! I told these old loons that we should be merciful. So, even when Sora becomes our puppet, you can be with him in the Organization!" Despite herself, at the inclusion of such a light and chipper voice that reminded her of Sora (who else would be so genuinely happy in such a situation?), Kairi found herself peering through the crowd to get a good look at the "merciful" person.

Though she felt her lips tilting upward in a small smile upon seeing the blond's small smirk, and green eyes that reminded her of the old Riku, she had to wonder if the Organization really could have just made such a fatal flaw as she was realizing. If this person already didn't want to hurt her, and was one of the ones stationed to watch over her... Could it be that she could make a connection with him, and convince him to free her? It was probably a long shot, but it was looking like the only chance she had.

In a lithe movement that even surprised her, Kairi found herself jumping to her feet in a way Sora and Riku would have been proud of. Noting, suddenly, what the blond Organizer had been talking about, Kairi understood that she'd been put in one of their cloaks. How odd... Still, she wasn't going to complain. As the tail of her coat was loose and easily functional, Kairi found she was already coming up with plans to let her kidnappers stab it instead, if they tried to fight or grab at her.

Feeling a little more secure about everything (as secure as she could be in such a situation, anyway), Kairi crossed her arms over her chest—she wasn't going to let her heart show these people its power like it had Axel—Kairi kept her voice strong and sure when she said, "You're trying to use me to hurt Sora, but I won't do it. If you make me hurt him, I'll kill myself." Though Kairi knew for certain that she would easily do such a thing (despite the weird tugging at her heart that told her she_ couldn't_ do that), it wasn't the whole truth.

The whole truth was that if she ever hurt anyone, her body would attack itself probably just as strongly as she had her target. As a pure Light being, Kairi wasn't allotted to hurt anyone, and doing such a thing would probably kill her faster and more merciful than these people would. However, she couldn't tell these people that.

As she looked around, desperately looking for some sort of purchase—some sort of way she could escape! —Kairi knew that she _had _to keep the upper hand. Though she really doubted she served much a threat to the burly brunette or glaring man with the dreadlocks, things would become even _worse_ if her captors learned she couldn't even move to protect herself. More than that, there was a secret she couldn't let them know. A secret she wasn't sure she could let anyone know. This secret was something she was more than willing to die to protect. It was more than the right thing to do-

"Ack!" Kairi screamed out, as razor sharp blades danced across her face, and the blood that it created mixed with her hair in a cruel sort of irony. Though Kairi's hair was the color of blood (something she usually hated to think about), it was ironically she who wasn't allowed to spill blood. The woman, however, who had just attacked her (who's hair was the color of yellow and Light), was able to make a mockery of Kairi.

In shock, as she held a hand to her cheek, Kairi was more than upset with herself that she'd betrayed her pain and had shouted like that. She didn't want these people to think she was an easy mark, but the surprise of it all had really been what had done it. That, and the fact this woman had hit her so hard, one of her teeth had come loose. And so it was with complete happiness that Kairi spat her said tooth at the woman's face and grinned, despite her pain, in that the sound she'd made when she'd spat it out was similar to her scream. Now they wouldn't think she was such a weakling. Maybe now, they would think she hadn't screamed at all, and had been gathering saliva to chuck at-

"Hey now, Larxene. There's no need to treat the guest like that. Come on, Kairi." As Kairi spotted that it was the redhead she'd met earlier, Axel, coming out of the crowd to help her, she couldn't say she was really surprsied. But in the weird moment when he began massaging her arm caringly, she had to wonder, based on what Saïx had said earlier... Were all of Axel's actions a ploy? And if so, whom was he playing? As he muttered a quick cure spell and healed Kairi's face, at least, she thought she knew full well.

She hadn't missed it. She hadn't missed the look Axel and Larxene had shared at all. It was the look Riku had given Sora when he'd shown Kairi the secret place when he wasn't supposed to. It was a look of betrayal. Though she didn't know much else, Kairi knew that Axel had betrayed Larxene, and now that Axel had acted to protect Kairi, she'd lash out at her even more. And so, was Axel really acting to protect Kairi at all?

"They're here!" Not even bothering to look up at who had spoken (though Kairi thought it was probably the brunette brute who had been quiet before, and now shouted only the slightest bit), Kairi found herself slumping into Axel's arms again. She knew exactly who they were talking about, and what the Organization would want her to do now. This time, though, she was determined she wouldn't go down so easily. Not this time. Sora's freedom was on the line! "Sora's here. Get Kairi ready to-"

As the brunette motioned at a purplish orb for Axel to take Kairi to, the Princess of Heart found herself remembering how earlier she'd been planning to use the flower thing to fight. Though a purple orb wasn't as much her style, desperate times called for desperate measures. And so, picking it up, she planned to throw it at the silver haired man (who had had a smug demeanor to him through everyone's conversation), but suddenly she felt a blade pressing to her neck. Looking downward, Kairi noted that Axel was holding her back, and he'd placed a chakram to her neck. As the dark red of her blood blended in with the yellow of her necklace, Kairi couldn't help but notice it became brown like Sora's hair. She could only hope it wasn't a sign of things to come. Even so, she knew what she had to do...

**Author's Note: Oh, boy. And here I thought I needed a break from SoKai multi-chapters. Oh well. If you haven't figured it out yet, this is going to be a retelling a CoM in which Kairi has Naminé's role. That isn't to say this story will be exactly like it, though. It'd be boring that way. This story will have a plot of its own, and I'm already coming up with a lot of ideas, so I hope you guys will stick with me! I don't know how long this will be, but I should be able to see it through to the end ("should" being the key word in that sentence). I've taken on way too many projects lately...**

**So, to tell the truth, I could blame this story on how recently I've been wishing Nomura had given Kairi some of Naminé's role (dodges bullets from Naminé lovers), but I think I've always had this idea in the back of my head. This seems to be my type of stories. I LOVE what-ifs. And this one is, obviously, what if it had been Kairi assigned to Castle Oblivion instead of Nami? A lot would have been different, that's what! LOL. **

**Also, rest assured, that all these loose ends will be resolved eventually. I won't leave you guys confused forever, but I do like plot twists and mysteries, so you might be in the dark for a while. Sorry.**

**And about Naminé… You'll just have to wait and see! Is she just a figment of Kairi's imagination or is she something else? Only time will tell. **

**So, I think this story might all be in Kairi's PoV. I'm mainly writing this to show people who doubt Kairi how AWESOME she could be, if Nomura would just develop her better. So, yeah. We'll see how this goes.**

**Thanks for reading and please review!**

**Love ya guys.**

**-Shanna**


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